Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Last night and this morning I was haunted by the memory of a (should be now former) head of the medical association that I once worked for. During the DC convention (the following year's convention left me stranded in Denver on 9-11) this head, a surgeon born in Malaysia, took a number of the staff out to dinner to a Malaysian restaurant just south of Dupont Circle.Addressing the crowd of family, association members/doctors and staff he spoke of his humble beginnings and how the Methodists educated him and he credited them for the doctor he had become. The Methodists provided his primary education and seemed to have been an influential presence in his life.Maybe it was seeing Major Barbara, member of the Methodist spin off Salvation Army, and thinking about missionary work.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Is the time and date I got annoyed and pissed off at my parents. That is the date stamped on their "Final Judgement Dissolving Marriage". Beyond that, I am so hearting the Internet.I went on-line to see what was up with the family homestead. Mom owes the county less than $200 to pay the property tax on the house and the lot, which are roughly 1/4 the size of my block. The county, though not having the prettiest (actually it looks very, very lame, I expected to see fluttering butterflies & dancing groundhogs lame) website, does have some good stuff linked up. Not only was I able to bring up the property, see how much that worthless piece of dirt is worth ($40K), but got links to liens and my parent's divorce judgement, which... I see that "Husband shall transfer to Wife by quit claim deed all of his right, title and interest in the house and land at XXX NW XX Avenue, BFE, Florida." Daddy has failed to sign over a quit claim deed, mainly because mom has failed to get a loan just for the house. If I get a promotion the first thing I'm doing is buying crap house from the parents and clarifying who owns what and selling it to my sister and the illegal Mexican.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I was in a situation where I encountered what definitely had a whiff of 'ew, poor people' about it. Diversity isn't without its challenges. When I advertise the room out I try to weed out the people who just can't deal with poor people period. However I'll take the people who will later have solid reasons for disliking certain poor people. But I digress a bit.Coming from an impoverished American background and now being quite and unapologetically bourgie, I do meet other members of the middle class, raised that way, who have no patience or sympathy for the poor. Or maybe what I'm sensing is a lack of obligation to the poor, particularly when the poor people in question live in the same friggin neighborhood as you and you have to deal with them as people and not as an abstraction. The spirit of the dislike of the immediate poor seems to me to have the same air about it as the dislike of the rich for the simple fact that the rich are rich.